Never Alone (2 page)

“Don't worry about it. It's been a long day for both of you. And my condolences about your father.”

“Thanks. Well, I better get mingling.” Brendan excused himself.

“Nappa,” Megan said, “we need to talk, and it's as good a time as any, I guess. Actually, you just listen.” She let out a hard sigh. “I'm serious about this. I'm thinking about leaving the force.”

Before Nappa could object, Megan said, “I need to, Nappa. For my own fucking sanity.”

“McGinn, your father was the reason you joined the force. Seriously, think about this. I know the last few cases have been grueling,
especially
the last case. You may want to leave, but the job will never leave you, and you
know
that. Take some time off.”

She shook her head. “I'm burned out.”

“Please, as your partner, promise me you will take some time and really think this over.”

She promised him, knowing full well her decision had been made. Megan clanked her glass with his. “To my dad. The late, great Detective Pat McGinn. God bless.”

For the next six hours people talked, laughed, and filled the
Murphy household with the occasional alcohol-induced tear.
More than once she glanced over at Uncle Mike and felt more pain for his loss than for her own. He'd just lost his best friend—the one friend who had his back, no matter what. Knowing someone has your back rarely happens in this world as far as Megan could see. That part of Uncle Mike's life just ended. He had Aunt Maureen, but it's different between men, especially men on the job.

By midnight Megan was sure she'd pass out if she didn't get home to her Upper East Side apartment soon. “Time for me to go.”

“Oh, Meggie, please stay here tonight.” Aunt Maureen was a short woman with wide hips and a warm smile. She still bore the wedge haircut made popular by skater Dorothy Hamill in the 1976 Winter Olympics.

Megan began putting on her coat. “I need my own bed tonight, Aunt Maureen.”

Uncle Mike interrupted. “Leave her alone, Maureen. She knows what's best for her right now.” He heaved himself up off the couch and declared, “But, kiddo, you are not taking the subway. I'm calling you a Town Car.” He held up his palm. “No arguing.”

Megan complied, and thirty minutes later Uncle Mike walked her out to the shiny black Lincoln. Before she got in, he gave her a hug. His voice shook as he said, “We lost our Ginty, kiddo.”

“Yeah, we did.” Megan's tears returned.

“You remember: we're family, blood or not.” Uncle Mike quickly regained his composure. “Here, take this for the tip.” He tucked a twenty-dollar bill in her pocket.

“Uncle Mike, I'm not going to—”

“Yes, you are. Now, go and be safe. I'll call you tomorrow.”

_____

The Town Car crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and zipped up the FDR Drive along the East River. Megan stared out the window at all the lights, thinking of her empty apartment, her empty bed. All that quiet, and the long hours before dawn. When the car was two blocks away from her building, she told the driver to take a left and then stop. Kinsale's Bar would be in full swing, and she wanted to be too.

two

Through an exhausted breath,
he asked, “What did you say your name was again?”

The room smelled of pot and booze. Pitch-black with the exception of the Manhattan lights filtering in through the curtains. Moaning, the occasional grunt, and the sound of the headboard banging against the wall filled the bedroom.

“I didn't.”
This is not the time for small talk, dude
, Megan thought. She was straddling him with her eyes closed, gyrating his cock between her legs, deep inside her. She ran one hand up and down his sweaty chest, while the other rubbed her clit. She noticed he had large, soft hands as they played with her nipples. She liked that, especially when the sex was rough, especially with a stranger.

They'd met in Kinsale's. Just past one in the morning, he sat down on the stool next to her. A half hour later they were back in her Upper East Side apartment. She wasn't looking for a romantic evening, obviously, just a fuck-fest. It's funny how few men ever denied her that.

He moaned and came long before she hoped for.

Jackass.

He whispered, “God, that was incredible.” She barely had time to dismount before the next noise coming from her bed was a gruff snore.

“Christ.”

She went to her dresser to get her jackrabbit and gave herself what the man sleeping in her bed couldn't: a nice hard, make-your-eyes-roll-to-the-back-of-your-head orgasm.

Thank God for Duracell.

She decided a quick shower was in order—not out of shame, just cleanliness. Megan kept shame at bay when it came to sex. An unmarried woman in her thirties had as much right as a man to get her needs met. Besides, there were plenty of other places in her life where shame could plant itself.

Afterward she toweled off, threw her hair back, put on a pair of boxer shorts and white T-shirt. Then she opened up the medicine
cabinet and popped an Ambien. Not only did she find herself
grateful for battery companies, but pharmaceutical companies made her top-ten list as well.

_____

It was one of those nightmares when you know you're dreaming, but you don't know it enough to wake yourself up. She'd had the dream a thousand times, so she knew how it would end. Not that that made waking up any easier.

She was walking down the street, drunk, a three-beer kind of drunk for being a senior in high school. She'd left a party and was on her way back to her girlfriend's dorm. Two blocks. The longest two blocks she'd ever walk in her life.

He grabbed her from behind and pulled her through trees
blocking an empty house. The
For Sale
sign had weeds growing around it. His hand tasted of cigarettes and sweat and something she wouldn't recognize until later. Blood. She kicked, tried to scream, but the only sounds available were muffled pleas. Two pit bulls were tied to the radiator. They lunged at her, lusting for fresh meat. Their gritted fangs dripped saliva. The sound of their ravenous barks was as clear in the dream as it was sixteen years ago.

He gripped her by the back of the head, slamming it down
onto each step of the staircase as he dragged her to the second level. She grabbed onto the banister as if it were a life raft. That's when she caught sight of the lit candles, garbage, ripped newspapers, and, oddly enough, dolls strewn about the musty-smelling house. Most of the dolls were complete in form, others just headless torsos. And the thought came to her, just as the glare of the blade passed in front of her face:
Headless torsos. Headless torsos.

The feeling of the knife entering her was always responsible for catapulting her eyes open to the present day. It was the feel of warm blood trickling down her breast that Megan would be hard-pressed to forget.

Nightmare toll: one thousand one.

_____

The room was on its side. At least that's what she thought until she realized she was lying on the bathroom mat. The combination of alcohol and Ambien must have knocked her out before she could make it back to her bed. She sat up—too quickly, she realized. Suddenly nauseated, she was glad that at least she was already in the bathroom and didn't have to go far to get sick.

After what seemed like an eternity, Megan didn't think it was possible to have anything remaining in her stomach. She thought wrong.
She clutched the sides of the porcelain bowl with her palms tightly clasped, elbows resting on the rim, looking as she did years ago at Our Lady of Lourdes Elementary School during confession with Father Dwyer. Both experiences left her abdomen in agony and her face waxen.

She sat back on the white tiled floor of her bathroom. The cold soothed her legs as the rest of her body continued to rebel while she paid homage to the
porcelain God. She then leaned against the wall, dabbing her face with toilet paper and wondering if there would be one more heave.

“Christ, Meg—are you done yet?” she asked herself through the pounding in her head.

Rubbing crust out from the corners of her eyes, she stared
down at the floor. “Jesus, when was the last time I cleaned this?” Megan's idea of cleaning was the twenty-second-typhoon approach. If someone called to say he was on the way over, she'd blast through the place, throwing most everything into the closet or under the bed. A domestic diva she was not.

She picked up a tampon wrapper, a piece of lint, and a used cotton ball and rolled them into one, tossing it into the trash. During this intense bathroom cleaning, her phone rang.

“Shit, what now? What time is it?” A tuft of her strawberry blond hair had escaped the ponytail holder. She pushed it behind her ear before raising herself to the edge of the tub. Turning on the tap, she drenched a washcloth with cold water before placing it on the nape of her neck. The cold compress felt like the only thing keeping her head from falling off her shoulders. Her other body parts were in equal, if not worse, condition. She felt one large, continuous cramp riffling through every muscle.

Megan knew it wouldn't be long before she'd have to answer the damn phone.

The sound of her own voice on the old answering machine broke the silence. “Hi, you've reached Megan, please leave a message.”

“McGinn, pick up the—” It was Nappa.

Megan took a deep breath, pulled herself up off the edge of the tub, and ambled her way into the bedroom. She cleared her throat as she grabbed the receiver, trying to sound as if she were in full form. “Hey. What's up?”

“McGinn, there's a new case. I know what you're going to say, and you'll probably still say it, but you need to see this.”

She waited a moment before answering, “No. Nappa, I told you I'm done. I'm
done
.”

“You need to see this.
I
need for you to see this crime scene.”

She responded with silence.

“If not for your partner, then for the memory of your father.”

Her silence was now coupled with anger. “That was a cheap fucking shot.” Megan hung up, then yelled in the direction of her bed, “Hey, wake up! You have to go.” She threw on her clothes and ran a brush through her kinked hair.

The twenty-something stockbroker groaned as he turned over, exposing his firm ass. “Come back to bed, we're not done yet.”

“Can't. I have to get to work.”

“Just for a few minutes.”

“The meaning of a one-night stand is that it's once, and at night. That's why it's not called a one-morning stand. C'mon, you have to get out of here. I'm in a hurry.”

Stockbroker guy turned on his back, pushing the pillows up behind his head. The sheet fell below his hips, revealing dark pubic hair and the increasingly stiff reason for wanting her to return to bed.

“Technically, it was three times during the one-night stand.” He waved three fingers in the air.

Megan picked his pants up off the floor and threw them in his direction. “You dropped the ball on the third time, dude. Seriously, I'm in a hurry. Get up. Get dressed.” She went back into the bathroom to brush her teeth and put some distance between her and Stockbroker stud.

“When can I see you again? I like you, I want to get to know you better,” he yelled from the bed.

Megan rolled her eyes at the absurdity of his comment, answering with a mouthful of toothpaste, “Leave me your number, I'll call you.”

So many lies, so early in the morning.

“I'm serious, I think you're great,” he said.

She wiped the remaining toothpaste from the corner of her mouth before walking back into the room. “You're right, I am great. I'm a sexual Olympian. Now get up.”

“Can't you tell? I
am
up.”

“I meant the rest of you.”

Stockbroker guy watched as she zigzagged around the apartment, gathering her things while he put his clothes on.

“Do you mind if I ask where you got that scar from?”

When you're naked and straddling a man during sex, a scar
positioned slightly above the left breast and under the collarbone can rarely be missed, even in the dark.

She ignored the question, even though his tone was sincere. “Listen, I had a great time, too. I'll call you.” She fastened her watch while scanning the room for one last item.

“Looking for these?”

Handcuffs dangling from the headboard can cause either a flurry of excitement or a terrible lull in conversation. This was the latter. She took a moment before acknowledging him with a sarcastic glare.

She pointed toward the door. “Get out.”

three

It was so easy.
She opened the door with that wide-eyed morning smile, so happy to see me. I told her I didn't come empty-handed. Within minutes, my hands held her lifeless neck. Today is a good day.

_____

Megan arrived at the crime scene wearing more black than a ninja. Her customary Manhattan attire—black pants, black turtleneck, black leather blazer—set against her pale skin emphasized the gold highlights running through her hair. She held up her
shield for the officer standing in front of the yellow police tape as she ducked underneath.

After they figured she was out of earshot, the officer clicked on his walkie-talkie. “You guys better be awake up there. Detective Super Bitch is on her way up.”

There were two officers posted outside the apartment door of the crime scene. The one not grazing on a bagel responded, “Got it, but what's
your
problem with her?”

“I don't got a problem with her.”

“No, I can tell you don't. What, she's a detective and you're still hanging the yellow tape outside of scenes, that bother you, bro?”

“That ain't the reason and you Goddamn know it. I just think she's a bitch who could use a good hard pounding, if you know what I mean.”

The officer, bug-eyed and red-faced, stared at Megan as she quickly approached him. The other officer stopped in mid-chew of his breakfast.

Yellow-tape cop continued via the walkie-talkie, “And lemme tell ya, I'd give her one good hard pole of a time. Bitch would feel it for weeks.”

Megan had been halfway up the last staircase when she'd caught wind of the officers' conversation. It put a smile on her face. She loved to take the piss out of people. She placed one finger up to her lips, motioning both door officers to be silent, taking the walkie-talkie away from the embarrassed man. “This is Detective Megan McGinn. Trust me when I say this: if the size of your cock is in proportion to your IQ, or to your potential to move up in the ranks of this department, I am in complete assurance that not only could you not hold a hard-on for five seconds, but it couldn't fill half a hot dog bun.” She kept the button pushed in. “One of you go down and get his shield number for me.” She returned the walkie-talkie. “Nappa inside?”

Both men just stared like boys caught spray-painting a school.

_____

Entering a crime scene was an adrenaline rush for Megan, as odd as that seemed. Her first month on assignment, she'd witnessed overdosed hookers in alleyways, the needles still sticking out of their arms; countless double murders or murder-suicides; a man who stabbed his fiancée to death because she overcooked his dinner; and numerous welfare mothers killed by their drug-dealing boyfriends. The number of bodies she'd seen in gang killings alone could fill a book.

She stood at the threshold of the living room now, donning a pair of latex gloves and paper booties over her shoes as she scanned the room like an eagle surveying a field before dinner. The forensics team was deep into their work. She didn't bombard them with her questions yet.

Nappa was speaking with the first officer on the scene, getting the usual information: confirm the body hadn't been moved, ascertain whether anyone had entered the apartment after his arrival, note anything suspicious when he arrived (besides a dead body on the floor). He then delegated the usual laundry list of duties: start taking names and phone numbers of everyone in the building, check if anyone had any priors, find out if there were any disturbances reported in the building recently, etc.

Megan liked Sam. He knew his business, and he knew how to work a crime scene. He had started out in Narcotics
and had made some big drug busts, but in the end you're always one step behind the drug dealers. One would get knocked off or arrested and there'd be another waiting in the wings ready to take his place.

Nappa was getting close to burnout mode when he decided to switch to Homicide. He thought helping to solve murders would give him some kind of closure. That was about a year ago. So far, there had been little in the way of closure.

Megan waited while the crime-scene photographer took some shots before she went over to the dead body.

“I wasn't sure you'd come.”

“Fu—” Megan paused to stare down at the position of the victim. “Fuck you,” she whispered.

“Sorry for the earlier comment about ‘do it for the memory of your father' bullshit.”

Megan scratched her forehead, hearing his apology as mere white noise. “Hmm.”

Nappa continued, “Young, maybe late twenties, early thirties. Looks like strangulation. No sign of a break-in.” Nappa released a heavy sigh. “So far, no sign of prints. Forensics just got here, so they've really just started. She's fully clothed, in workout clothes, so I doubt there was any sexual assault.
Nothing's been torn on her.
The super found her this morning when he came to fix the kitchen faucet.”

“Where is he now?” Megan asked.

“He's with a uniform downstairs. He's pretty rattled. We're
working on getting the contact information from the lease to see if we can get in touch with next of kin. The super said her family lives somewhere in Connecticut. We should have the information soon.”

“What's her name?” asked Megan.

“Shannon McAllister.”

“Can I take a look?” Megan asked the crime-scene photographer.

The photographer stopped chewing a large wad of gum to respond. “Go ahead, I'm done. I'm moving into the next room.”

Megan walked around to the other side of the couch to inspect Shannon McAllister's dead body.

Oh Christ.

“This was exactly how she was found?” Megan asked.

Shannon lay on her side, her head placed delicately on a pillow. Her hair was brushed neatly over her shoulders and her hands lay peacefully cupped one within the other in front of her forehead. Her legs were bent at a ninety-degree angle. She looked as though she could have been sleeping peacefully, if her eyes weren't bulging open and gray.

“Exactly,” Nappa replied. “I spoke with the first uniform on the scene. He said he didn't touch her.”

“What about the super?” she asked.

He shook his head.

Megan knelt down beside Shannon. She looked hard into her vacant stare, then moved Shannon's jaw side to side, inspecting the contusions on her neck. She was as gentle inspecting Shannon's
lifeless corpse as she'd be placing a baby in a crib. She looked
around the immediate surroundings: books sprawled across the floor, an empty Tiffany's jewelry box.

“You're sure she wasn't touched?” Megan asked again, hoping the answer would somehow be different, though knowing it wouldn't be.

“Positive.”

Megan read the inscription on the heart dangling from the
bracelet on Shannon's wrist.
Carpe Diem.
Megan tugged at her own necklace, a compulsive habit she'd developed when she was deep in thought.

“I guess seizing the day is no longer an option for you, Miss McAllister,” she whispered.

Megan picked up Shannon's right hand to see if there were traces of anything under her fingers. She found bruises near her wrist and an Irish Claddagh ring, the crown turned outward. There was a faint scent she couldn't place.

Nappa crouched down beside Megan and whispered, “McGinn, tell me what I'm thinking is wrong.”

She raised an eyebrow in sympathy, whispering, “Sorry, Nappa.” Megan started to walk around the apartment to view Shannon McAllister's body from different angles. “Obviously, she was deliberately placed in this position.”

“It looks like she's sleeping, almost in the fetal position.”

Megan paused. “Maybe.” It was a good theory, but there was something more to it; at least that's what her gut was telling her. But it was also telling her something else.

This won't be the last victim.

Two policemen were in the corner of the room chatting about the score of whatever sporting event took place the previous night.
When their conversation got above a whisper, Megan snapped.
“Hey, is our investigation interrupting your conversation? Take it outside, for Chrissake.”

Judging how everyone else in the room responded, mannequins had better circulation after one of Megan's outbursts. Nappa was immune to them by now. “Jesus, McGinn, get up on the wrong side of the bed today?”

Got up on the wrong side of the wrong man, is more like it.

She just shrugged. “Something like that. Keep going. What else is there?”

“Wallet's still here with money and credit cards inside. Jewelry is still on her. Maybe boyfriend trouble?”

“I doubt it. She's wearing an Irish Claddagh ring.”

“Doesn't that mean she's in love or something?” Nappa asked.

“She's wearing the Claddagh ring on her right hand with the heart facing outward and away from her body. She's single, offering her heart.”

“Are you sure?” Nappa asked.

Megan looked over at Zachary Jones, the assistant medical examiner on the scene. “Hey, Jonesy, the Italian is questioning his Mick partner about Irish Claddagh rings. What's up with that?” she joked.

“Beats the hell out of me. I'm not Irish, what would I know
about Claddagh rings?”

Zachary Jones, commonly referred to as Jonesy, was thin and had precision-cut brown hair. He always wore Oxford shirts with matching ties—which Megan joked were clip-ons—underneath his blue medical examiner's windbreaker. He was smart and young, and had a direct sense of humor. Megan considered it a dry humor, while most people meeting Jonesy for the first time thought he was bleak, sometimes bordering on crass.

“Do you want to know why there's a dead girl in the middle of the room, or are we going to chitchat about jewelry some more?”

Megan could see why people thought Jonesy insensitive.
She
smiled, remaining quiet as Jonesy explained how Shannon Mc­
Allister was murdered.

“Carpe jugulum.”

“Sorry?” Nappa interrupted.

“Go for the throat.” Megan had trouble grasping as well as remembering the Ten Commandments in Catholic school, but Latin had always fascinated her.

“Very good, Detective. You two have a fresh kill on your hands.”

Megan shot a look over at Nappa, then back to Jonesy. “What do you mean
fresh
. It's barely eleven o'clock.”

“Maybe three hours, if that. I'll have a better idea when we do an autopsy, check the temp of the liver.”

Fucking ballsy unsub
, Megan thought.

Jonesy continued, “I think he wore surgical gloves, two pairs, specifically. Based on the bruising around the neck, I think the killer first attacked from behind. Then, because of the abdominal bruising, I'd say he put his knee on her side to hold her down while he strangled her. So far no fingerprints, and I mean not
one
print, even from the victim. It looks like he wiped the whole place down.”

“Don't forget to bag her hands,” Megan said.

“I'll bag 'em, but I don't think we'll find anything,” Jonesy said.

“Why not?”
Nappa
asked.

“Look,” Jonesy knelt down and held up one of Shannon's wrists, moving her clutched hand side to side. “He cleaned her hands and trimmed the nails down to the quick. It looks like he used nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol to do it. I'll do a chem test to tell for sure.”

“The killer cleaned her hands?” Megan asked.

“Yes, and he was extremely thorough about it.”

“So he kills her and gives her a manicure.” She looked up at Nappa. “I doubt he threw any cotton balls, or whatever he used, in the trash can.”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

“He killed her, gave her a manicure, and cleaned her apartment. That's a hell of a Merry Maids service, isn't it?” Jonesy said.

“This has not been a good fucking morning,” Megan whispered to herself. A moment later, her cell phone vibrated. She turned away from the group for the slightest bit of privacy. “Detective McGinn.” The call was one she'd receive every now and then. “Well, is she okay? Did she hurt herself ? Okay. Good. I'm going to have to call you back.” She hung up without saying goodbye and reconvened with the others. She stood with her arms crossed as if preparing for a fierce chill.

“There aren't any signs of a break-in, so she knew him, or he had a key and waited until she got home,”
Nappa
said. “What do you think? Any connection to the murder on the Lower East Side?”

“Could be. It's too early to tell.” Megan muttered again, “Could be.” She walked a few steps around Shannon to look at her from a different vantage point. “The other vic didn't have anything under her nails, right?”

“Totally clean,”
Nappa
answered.

Megan thought a moment. “She was found a few days after being killed. Maybe there's a time issue with what he used to clean under the nails, something that couldn't be detected after a few days.” Megan stepped back. “But the other victim wasn't placed
so …
thoughtfully
. Maybe the killer didn't have time with the other
vic.”

“Yeah, something could have rushed him, but the Lower East Side girl was a hooker. There are so many more possibilities with a vic like that,”
Nappa
said.